• Micro vs Macro: Are You In The Weeds?

  • Micro vs MacroTaking Care of BusinessEvery creative leader faces the challenge of building and managing a team.  If you are a small business owner, you interact with your employees more than you would in the corporate world.   A company’s setup, staff education level and experience will actually dictate which management style is more appropriate for you as much or more than your preference.  Great management happens on both a “micro” level and a “macro” level.  Micro-management – not the notoriously negative “micromanagement,” but rather what I call the MICRO aspect of management – is all about the day-to-day management that keeps the team on track.

    A great MICRO manager asks questions like:

    • What are the deadlines for a particular project?
    • How do we measure progress (and are we making progress)?
    • Is there sufficient feedback exchange?
    • How do we promote more accountability within the team?

    But what about the MACRO part of management?  Beyond your day-to-day role as a manager, you must also consider the career trajectory of those who are a part of your team.

    A great MACRO manager asks questions like:

    • What skills does each employee want/need to develop?
    • What are each person’s career aspirations?
    • How will each person’s role develop over the coming years?
    • Does each member of the team feel happy and fully utilized?

    As you can see, the MICRO and MACRO perspectives of management are quite different. But they are equally important.

    Our challenge as managers is that we have an inherent bias for the MICRO side…The Weeds!!  Our operational obsession with near-term progress and great performance at any given moment often inhibits our MACRO perspective. As a result, we may lose people or fail to push our colleagues to their greatest potential and limit our own individual progress and growth.

    What do you think?

    How much or now little do micro and macro management mean to your business? Are you able to maintain an effective balance between them? How do you do it? We’d like to hear from you. Have you registered?